


The Bokeh Effect

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: But mostly fluff, Copious Amounts Of Swearing, Demisexual Neil Josten, Fake/Pretend Relationship, He's doing his best ok, Light Angst, M/M, background Renison - Freeform, well maybe not his best but an attempt was made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-09 17:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20495996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: Neil is struggling as a freelance photographer when the opportunity of a lifetime presents itself.  Unfortunately, a casual lie told during his initial interview leaves him scrambling to find a "partner" ASAP.  His best option?  His ex-best friend/ex-roommate, who ghosted him the day after graduation.Neil is in some serious trouble.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In photography, the bokeh effect is where the background, the part not in focus, is aesthetically blurred. Sometimes this draws the eye to the main focus of the photograph, and sometimes it is the artistic intent of the shot.
> 
> (Thank you as always to Nicole @tntwme for the beta! I'll be posting Mondays and Thursdays.)

“Oh, fuck.”

Neil stared down at his phone. The open email glared back at him, smug, confident in its black-and-white superiority. _ I look forward to meeting your partner. _ Who could’ve guessed his lies would actually, y’know, get him in trouble?

He flopped onto his couch, his head dropping back into the threadbare cushions. There was a cobweb on his ceiling, billowing in the current from the ceiling fan that was doing its level best to cool the room. Somewhere he had some sort of duster packed away, something Matt had talked him into buying when he rented the apartment a couple months ago; he should dig it out and wage war on the cobwebs, the dust beginning to accumulate on top of his TV, all of it. 

Instead, he just watched the puff of gray wafting back and forth, back and forth.

How did he always get himself into this shit? He knew how, it was his stupid tongue, which was irrevocably connected to his stupid brain, but still. It had been reflexive, when surrounded by a horde of predatory eyes, to answer, “Are you seeing anyone?” with “Yes.” He never could have anticipated that would mean he would be expected to show up at the party-slash-job interview with said imaginary significant other. Allison Reynolds was on the verge of giving him the job offer of a lifetime—principal photographer for her swanky startup travel magazine/website—if only he didn’t fucking blow it and expose himself as the lyingest liar ever to lie. 

Tearing his eyes away from the ceiling, he exited out of his email and pulled up his texting threads. Matt would accompany him in a heartbeat, but he was on his honeymoon with Dan, and there was something unpalatable about asking his newly-married best friend to pretend to be his partner. Dan, same problem. Robin may have been used to his bullshit after being his roommate for the past year, but she was a hundred miles away getting ready for grad school and too busy to even think of him. Marissa—ew. He should’ve deleted her contact info after the last photo shoot when she would not stop touching his arm, but he might need her again for another freelance job. Seth would laugh in his face, then punch him. Kevin would lecture him. Neil wasn’t totally sure on what, but he wasn’t in the mood to find out. Jeremy was in California, and while he probably would be willing to fly east to help him out, everyone would end up liking Jeremy better than him and that would probably still result in him losing the job.

Katelyn—he hadn’t talked to her in a couple months, but she was an option; she’d be charming, she’d sell it, and it’d be easy to fake a break-up once he had the job, no hard feelings. Only problem was, as far as he knew she was still with Aaron Minyard, for reasons passing understanding. Which meant, if he went with her, Aaron would have to be told. Which led him to scroll down, all the way down to the very bottom.

It was still there, gathering dust like everything else in his life. He’d changed the contact name to **Ghost** eons ago, after his last dozen texts had gone unanswered. Still the biggest mystery of his life: how Andrew Minyard had gone from being his roommate/best friend/something-he-couldn’t-quite-explain to...nothing, worse than nothing, a name he couldn’t even speak, in the span of one night. The disappearance had been so complete he might’ve called Buzzfeed Unsolved if it weren’t for the fact that he still popped up at random on other people’s social media feed. 

He dropped the phone on the couch next to him. It landed face-down, the text thread from he-who-must-not-be-named coming to rest where his ass usually was, which was oddly satisfying. Unfortunately, it still didn’t help him with the whole, “date-to-Allison’s-party” thing. 

Maybe he could ask his neighbor. Sure, she was a bit older than him, but she seemed nice, and she had a friendly dog that he stole cuddles from occasionally. He got to his feet to go ask, when he realized—he was going to have to explain, to a relative stranger, that his life was so bleak he needed a pity-date so he could get a job. Not that she didn’t probably already have some clues, given the copious amounts of take-out in his trash and the lack of literally anybody ever coming to his apartment, but, yeah, he couldn’t quite manage that. Better to stick with people who already knew him.

Grumbling, he picked his phone up again, closing out of the text app before he could even see that stupid thread. Allison’s email was still at the top of his inbox, and he hit reply.

“Thank you again for the invitation. I will be there, but unfortunately my partner broke up with me so I will be there alone.

Sincerely,

Neil”

His thumb hovered over Send, the image of her swanky office swimming behind his eyes, the surprisingly graceful engagement ring on her finger, the photos of various couples in exotic locales on every desk and wall. Most of the photos were crap, poorly composed and stereotypical, but that was the story she was selling. The story he would be selling, if he got the job.

_ Delete draft. _

His thumbs tapped the sides of his phone. Fuck. _ Fuck._ Fuck all of this stupid must-be-in-a-relationship bullshit. Maybe he shouldn’t take the job. Maybe he should just disappear off the grid, pull an Andr—a he-who-must-not-be-named and just pretend none of this ever existed, keep on scraping by with his freelance work. 

But the money...he’d be able to pay off all his student loans, something he had never thought would be possible. Not to mention the travel; she was already planning Iceland and New Zealand as her goals for the next couple of issues, two places he’d never been despite his overloaded passport. 

Before he could let the smart part of his brain overrule the desperate part, he opened up the **Ghost** text thread again. _ I need a favor and you owe me _

There. Done. He-who-must-not-be-named would no doubt ignore him, and tomorrow he could come up with a much more rational, intelligent plan for how to deal with the impossible.

He’d made it halfway to the sink in his tiny excuse for a kitchen when his phone buzzed. Filling a glass from the tap, he drank it down, eyeballing his phone while it buzzed its reminder, the screen lighting up the darkening room for a couple of seconds before fading. Probably Matt or Dan, with a photo of the pair of them swimming with dolphins or something. Maybe another prospective client wanting him to do a two-hour photo shoot of their untrained dog for thirty dollars.

There were definitely no butterflies in his stomach when he crossed back to the table. He did not need to take a couple of deep breaths before picking up his phone. And his mouth did not go dry when he saw the response on the screen. **Ghost:** _I don’t owe you shit_

Neil stared at the screen until it went black again, then set the phone down gently. Of course that would be his response. He shoved his feet in his shoes and headed out into the deepening twilight, his feet pounding the sidewalk until the rhythm pushed the words out of his head.

* * *

Dawn found him picking his way through the overgrown little park not far from his apartment, camera bag slung over his shoulder. People would pay for good bird shots for some reason, and good bird shots were best gotten as the sun rose. 

He found his favorite rock and sat on it to attach his telephoto lens. The song was already beginning to rise around him, a language he could never learn. Using the music to guide him, he found his first subject, a plump little finch swaying on the tip of a branch. Shot after shot, bird after bird; a couple of squirrels worked their way into his lens, staring into the camera like they knew what he was doing. After an hour, he packed up and headed home, hoping a few frames would be worthy of putting up on his website.

His phone was where he had left it, face down on the table. He still needed to RSVP to Allison, or risk the job before he even really tried. Sitting down with a bowl of knock-off Cheerios, he sighed and flipped it over.

A second text from **Ghost,** sent a few minutes after the first. _ What’s the favor _

Neil stared at the screen, blinking a few times, expecting the words to disappear, or blur and reform into something that made more sense, like _ Fuck off. _ Nothing changed. He chewed on his lip for a moment and then tapped out, _ I need a fake boyfriend to get a job _

The off-brand cereal was long gone, as was his second cup of coffee. He was scanning through his photos on his laptop: no; no; no; no; maybe, if he cropped and recolored—no; no; no; what the hell is that; no; no; no. Finally, a yes; an oriole, beak open as he sang his little orange-and-black heart out, the leaves behind him a perfect bokeh while every feather was crisp. He started to crop it when his phone buzzed, making him release the crop too soon and chopping off the poor bird’s head. Sighing, he corrected it, then looked at the traitor’s screen.

**Ghost:** _ When _

_ Tomorrow afternoon _

**Ghost:** _ You plan well _

_ I just found out about it asshole. You in or not _

**Ghost:** _ Whats the deal _

Neil sighed. Of course he wanted a deal. There had been a point where that hadn’t been necessary between them, but that was a long time ago. _ You go to this garden party with me while I take photos and try to not piss off an heiress with a magazine I want to work for. You have to pretend to actually not hate me. _ He couldn’t account for the bile that surged up his throat as he typed those last few words; swallowing it down, he added:_ I’ll do whatever you want in exchange I don’t care _

A long enough pause followed that he turned back to his oriole, tweaking it a little bit here and there, then adding his signature and watermark. On to the next; another no. 

**Ghost:** _ Pick you up or meet you there _

Oof. On the one hand, Neil wanted his own car so he could escape if this went poorly; on the other, it would seem a bit strange to drive separately. _ I’ll pick you up _

**Ghost:** _ Unless you’ve gotten a car that does not require its trunk to be tied shut, I’m picking you up _

Fuck him. Fuck this. It wasn’t worth it; there was no way this job was worth this humiliation. He rubbed his hands over his face. _ That’s your fault _

**Ghost:** _ Bullshit I only closed the trunk you’re supposed to be able to close the trunk that’s kind of the point _

_ Fine. Sending the invite _

**Ghost:** _ Fine. _ A pause. _ Got it _

_ What do you want in exchange? _

**Ghost:** _ I’ll decide later _

Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. Now he would be in debt to someone who hated him for no clear reason.

Maybe he could leave the country. Antarctica was supposed to be nice this time of year. 

He turned back to his photos. No; no; no.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew accompanies Neil to Allison Reynolds' garden party/job interview, and Neil is in for a couple of surprises.

It occurred to Neil, when the buzzer went for his apartment, that he had never given Andrew his address. He pressed the little speaker. “I’ll be right down.”

“Let me in,” came Andrew’s voice, tinny and strange through the speaker. 

“Why?”

“Because I brought you clothes.”

Neil looked down at himself. They were clean, reasonably new, no holes or loose threads or anything; he wore them to shoots all the time. “I’m wearing clothes.”

“Khakis and a Walmart button-down.”

Neil stared at the intercom and debated locking himself in his bathroom until the party was over. “So?”

“You can’t wear that to this party if you want the job.”

He didn’t tell Andrew that he’d worn something similar to his initial interview, or that he had noticed how Allison had studied him, that expression on her face. He pressed the button.

The knock on his door sounded a minute later; he supposed he should’ve been glad Andrew knocked instead of just picking the lock, but when he let him in he saw why. There was a garment bag in one hand and shoes in the other; Andrew himself was dressed in what looked like a very expensive dark gray suit, minus the tie. “What the fuck?”

Andrew dropped the shoes near the door and shoved the garment bag at him. “Just shut up and change.”

Neil locked himself in the bathroom and pulled on the clothes. Lightweight, cream-colored pants of a strange, soft material, much more fitted than he usually wore; a white button-down shirt; and a jacket in a blue-gray with some sort of check pattern to it. He didn’t want to know why Andrew was in possession of these clothes, or how he knew they would fit. Without a glance in the mirror, he took a deep breath and opened the door. 

He should’ve been used to the critical once-over Andrew gave him after the two years they’d roomed together at university, but he found his cheeks heating. “Let’s go,” Andrew said, which must’ve meant he passed inspection. Neil looked askance at the shoes, fancy-looking brown leather that were no doubt designed to torture his poor feet, but Andrew raised an eyebrow at him until he slipped them on.

Of course, they were as comfortable as slippers. Asshole.

Neil went to grab his camera bag off the couch, only to find Andrew holding it out for him, his monopod in the other hand. “I don’t need that,” he said, as mulishly as possible. Andrew set it back against the wall and disappeared into the hallway.

After locking the door Neil had to jog to catch up, and for a moment it was like being back at school, heading to class, Andrew always that half-step ahead. He hated how something settled, deep in his gut, at the familiarity of the warm, solid body next to him. Hated that he’d never had that feeling with anyone else.

The car was the same one he’d bought last year of university, sleek, black, showy. Neil slipped into the well-known passenger seat. Everything was the same: spotless, gleaming; but it no longer smelled of cigarette smoke, and there was no pack tucked into the cupholder. He glanced at Andrew, but there were no answers in his face.

Andrew drove the same, too; more like he was on a racetrack than roads with people who weren’t paid to put their lives on the line. Neil relaxed into the seat back as the street signs flashed by. They didn’t talk; but the silence wasn’t heavy. It should have been, Neil realized, as they pulled up to the Reynolds mansion. After all this time, it should have been. He didn’t understand why it wasn’t.

“Hang on,” Andrew said when Neil reached for the door handle. He pulled out a little piece of cloth and leaned across the console. His eyes asked a familiar question, and Neil nodded, confused. Andrew tucked the square into his pocket and retreated back into his own seat. 

“Why?”

“It’s a pocket square. Goes with the outfit.” That wasn’t what Neil meant, but he didn’t clarify and Andrew went on. “Are you going to tell me why the fuck we’re here of all places?” 

“It’s kind of a working interview? She just started a travel magazine and wasn’t happy with the photography. She wants a new lead.”

Andrew gave a short nod. “And what did you tell her that made you need to do this?” 

Neil glanced at him; his face was expressionless, but there had been something underneath his level tone, something Neil didn’t recognize. “Her assistant asked if I had a significant other.”

He didn’t need to explain more. Andrew knew Neil always said yes to that particular question; always had, though he’d never actually really dated anyone. Kissing occasional strangers at parties didn’t count. If you were taken, fewer people harassed you, and he’d learned that long ago.

The sprawling garden was already full of people, elegant and tanned, fancy cocktails in hand. Neil felt lost immediately, until light fingers rested against his back. Andrew guided him through the crowd, weaving among people and furniture until— 

“Neil!” came Allison’s voice. There she was, towering over them in her heels, her dress clinging to every curve. A shorter woman was next to her, smiling gently at Andrew, her hair bleached white and colored pink and purple at the tips. It matched the flowy dress she was wearing, but not the sharpness in her eyes; Neil longed to get out his camera and study her from behind the safety of his lens. 

“Andrew,” she said, nodding at him.

“Renee.” 

Allison huffed and Andrew’s eyes flickered to her before returning to the contradictory woman in front of him. Neil had the sudden sensation of walking into a shallow stream, only to fall into a hole, icy water rising over his head. He had no idea how Andrew knew these people, but a few things clicked into place. “Is this—this is your partner?” Allison asked, incredulous.

“Yeah?” Neil didn’t mean to answer as a question, but he was still searching for solid ground. Sweat was beading up under his fancy clothes under the scrutiny of the two women. Andrew stood solid and impassive next to him, and Neil found himself inching closer. 

“You didn’t mention you were dating someone,” the other woman—Renee—said to Andrew. 

“You didn’t ask.” 

Allison huffed, her arms folding across her chest. “How long have you been together?”

“Three years,” Neil said, at the same time Andrew answered, “Two months.”

They glanced at each other, and Neil gave an awkward laugh. “We’ve known each other three years, but we’ve been...dating...for two months.”

“Oh,” Renee said, with a questioning look at Andrew. He gave the tiniest possible nod, and something like satisfaction flickered across her face. “Allie, I think I see the senator’s daughter, did you want to say hello?”

Allison smiled down at her, and Neil suddenly realized Renee wore a ring as well, the same type of clear blue stone as Allison’s though a plainer setting. Huh. “I suppose we should. I hope you two enjoy yourselves. Neil, if you wanted to take some pictures?”

It was a relief to pull his camera out. He had switched to a mirrorless camera for these kind of shoots, the smaller body and lens being less obtrusive. Before he could lose himself in the viewfinder, Andrew touched his arm. “You didn’t know I know them.”

He wasn’t asking, and Neil shrugged. “How could I?”

Andrew looked like he wanted to ask something, something vital, but after an endless moment he turned away. “I’ll be at the bar.”

Neil watched his retreating back, as strong and straight as ever, until he disappeared into the crowd, then shook himself and turned his focus back to the job at hand. It was challenging, shooting these people. They were all too aware of all the other people, or at least of him; everyone seemed to be on stage, their laughter too loud, expressions too exaggerated to be natural. After a while he pretended to give up, turning his attention to the riot of flowers that interrupted the perfect lawn. A few shots of lilies and roses, of the water trickling over stone in the fountain, and he was back in business. 

He worked his way around carefully, alternating shots of the garden with candids of the people. Out of hundreds of shots, he managed a single perfect one: Allison tucking Renee’s hair behind her ear, a peculiar softness in her eyes, the sun just low enough in the sky to turn them both into gold. If that shot didn’t get him the job, he wasn’t sure he wanted it anyway.

Eventually people began drifting away, and he went in search of Andrew. Over the course of the afternoon he had seen him here and there, talking with Renee or wandering around with a drink in his hand, occasionally showing up to hand Neil a bottle of water or some bacon-wrapped whatever, but now he was nowhere to be found. Neil walked down a little slope and rounded a stand of trees, and there he was, leaning against the white bark of a birch, looking out across the artificial pond that decorated this part of the massive property. A shaft of light filtered through the branches, setting his blond hair gleaming, but that wasn’t what had Neil raising his camera to his eye. No; there was something almost melancholy about his posture, the set of his jaw. Just before the shutter clicked, Andrew’s eyes turned to him, and Neil had the second perfect shot of the day. 

“Delete that,” Andrew said, brushing Neil’s shoulder with his own as he walked past Neil towards the cars. Neil glanced down at the image on the tiny screen and shook his head, but Andrew was already gone. Once again, Neil found himself hurrying in Andrew’s wake, and he refused to let himself wonder why he had to bite back a smile.

Allison gave them a knowing look when they reappeared from between the trees, and Neil felt his ears start to burn. “I’ll send over some shots tomorrow,” he said, trying to distract her. It didn’t really work, but she nodded.

“Sounds good. Half a dozen should give me a sense. And here.” She handed him a fat envelope that he didn’t dare look into. “For your time today.”

He felt like he should protest, but the balance in his bank account had reached bottom and was starting to dig, so he accepted it with a thanks she waved off. By some miracle Andrew waited for him, and his hand was warm on Neil’s back as he steered him towards the cars. 

This time, the silence felt like needles pricking his skin. He pulled the fancy jacket off and threw it on the back seat, unbuttoned his collar. Andrew was watching him out of the corner of his eye, and his mouth tightened like he had reached a decision.

“Truth for truth.”

Neil huffed and rubbed his hand over his face, as if he could brush away the memory of the first time this happened: a rooftop at night, shared cigarettes, Neil learning the weight of honesty on his tongue. “Whatever.” Andrew’s look turned into a glare. “Fine. Yes.”

“If you didn’t know that I knew them, why did you ask me?”

Of-fucking-course that was the question he asked. Bitterness flooded Neil’s mouth, and he watched the world flying by his window, greens and reds and blacks and grays. “You know why.” There was no response from Andrew, and he dug his nails into his palm. “Matt and Dan are on their honeymoon. I didn’t have anyone else to ask.”

There was a long silence, then, “Your turn.”

Neil wanted to ask his own  _ why. _ Why had Andrew left that night, so abruptly that Neil had been scanning police reports until he saw a photo of him on Nicky’s Instagram, walking stone-faced around Stuttgart. Why he hadn’t returned any of Neil’s texts or calls. Why he had left Neil saddled with an apartment he couldn’t afford on his own, scrambling to find roommates for the year when the landlord wouldn’t let him out of the lease. How he could not care about him one iota after all they had shared.

But what came out of his mouth was, “How did you know where I live?”

“Kevin.”

That traitor. Neil debated a dozen vitriolic texts he could send him, but then they were pulling into his apartment complex and he suddenly felt like the last few grains of sand were slipping through the neck of the hourglass. “Thanks,” he said, the word burning on its way out. “See you in another couple years I guess.”

Andrew snorted. “You don’t know Allison very well if you think that’s the end of it.”

Neil froze with his hand on the door. “What?”

Hazel eyes that looked like honey in the fading sun turned to him. “Allison may be a bitch, but she’s not stupid. You’ll get the job. This isn’t over.”

He reached across and yanked the door shut, and Neil was left watching the tail lights gleaming red as Andrew sped out of the parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to this has been amazing, thank you guys! Hope you enjoyed meeting Allison and Renee too <3. HMU [on Tumblr](https://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com) if you ever want to chat! And thanks as always to @tntwme for the beta


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil's new job as lead photographer for Allison's magazine brings some unexpected questions. Like, why must he go to a fancy dinner? Why is Andrew still playing along? And what on earth is he going to say to his friends to explain this?

Andrew was right. Bastard.

Allison had called him thirteen minutes after he’d sent the photos offering him the job. As he’d expected, she’d especially liked the one of herself and Renee; but even the odd ones—the one where the foreground dahlia was in crisp focus, and the people behind bokeh’d into a pointillist painting; the one of Neil’s shoe next to a discarded champagne glass—had struck her fancy. The money was ridiculous, honestly; just the envelope she’d handed him would pay his rent for the month. And she was already buying plane tickets to Iceland.

But.

She wanted him and Andrew over for dinner, to “plan.” As if she wouldn’t decide everything and just drag Neil along. Which was, of course, his job. He’d read the contract. 

_ She wants us to come to dinner now _

**Ghost:** _I know_

_ I got the job _

_ You can go back to avoiding me. I’ll tell her we broke up _

**Ghost:** _Renee will be suspicious_

Ah yes. That odd little complication. Just fucking figured that Neil’s pity-date would be friends with his new boss’s fiance. Because his life wasn’t already fucked up enough.  _ How do you two know each other? _

**Ghost:** _She’s my sparring partner_

Neil stared at his phone; the screen stared glassily back at him. Renee might have a few inches on Andrew but he was a brick of solid muscle that could throw Neil over his shoulder and carry him up the stairs like nothing—and had, on more than one occasion back in his hot-headed college days. Part of him wanted to cringe thinking about it; the other part of him wanted to grab a bag of popcorn and watch.

He decided to ignore it.  _ So are you coming? _

Which was how Neil found himself that night in tight jeans and another shirt that was in some inexplicable way better than his usual shirts, sandwiched between Allison and Andrew at a table with too many forks. As expected, Allison spent the meal telling him what the plan was while pretending it was an equal conversation. Neil didn’t mind. Allison had every possible detail finessed, to the point where he barely had to listen. Four days being paid to photograph horses and mountains, shorelines and hot springs, was something he would be willing to do even if he had to sleep on the ground.

Andrew and Renee were carrying on their own quiet conversation. Neil caught fragments of it when Allison paused to chew, something about disaster planning and sheep? that he didn’t quite understand. It reminded him of late nights in the dorm, each of them sprawled on their respective bunks in the dark, watching Andrew’s foot dangling over the edge while they argued about everything and nothing. His fingers clenched around his fork as he fought to swallow the sudden lump in his throat.

“Andrew,” Allison said, breaking into his thoughts with a knife-edged smile. Neil stiffened, but Andrew’s calm expression didn’t change as he slid his attention to her. “How do you feel about your boy-toy going out of the country without you?”

“You don’t know Neil very well yet if you’re dismissing him as a toy,” was all Andrew said before turning back to Renee. Neil felt Andrew’s knee press briefly against his own, and he practically choked on the sharp words that had formed so readily on his tongue. Allison looked between them with an expression impossible to decipher, but when she asked her next question about accommodations she actually waited for Neil’s answer.

Neil’s phone buzzed as Andrew turned out of Allison’s driveway. Matt. Neil realized with an uncomfortable twist in his stomach that they hadn’t talked in a few days.  _ Hey Kevin said you and Andrew had gotten back together???? Call me when you get a chance _

Gotten back together. The words made no sense, not applied to him and Andrew. Is that what people had thought? Is that—was that what  _ Andrew _ had thought? The elegant meal turned leaden, and suddenly he felt like he might actually be sick. No. There had never been anything like that between them. Andrew had socked the doorknob more than a few times in the couple years they’d roomed together, and Neil had sought refuge with Matt or Kevin without a second thought. Sure, it had happened less frequently in the last semester, or maybe not at all; he couldn’t remember. But life had been busy, with graduation approaching. That was all. It didn’t mean…

The memory of that last night came back to him, as crystal clear as a photograph. Sitting on the rooftop, the scrolls of their fake diplomas limp from being used in sword fights, both of them spent from laughter and whiskey. The silence stretching out between them, warm and comfortable as a familiar song. The strange expression in Andrew’s eyes, turned silver in the moonlight; the spark that lit the alcohol in Neil’s blood until he felt like he was a flame. He remembered looking at Andrew’s lips, and thinking,  _ what if _ — 

But Andrew had stood abruptly, and the moment had dissipated like smoke, gone, never to return. In the morning, so was he.

“Truth?” Andrew’s voice interrupted him, that faint rasp that sounded like home, and Neil closed his eyes and turned his face to the window.

“No.”

The only sounds left in the world were tires on pavement and the hum of the engine.

* * *

Somehow, Neil’s cameras had defied the laws of physics and increased in mass during the flight home. There was no other explanation for how they suddenly each weighed sixty pounds instead of their usual fifteen, making him sag under the weight. He staggered behind Allison, as fresh and talkative as she always was, as they disembarked and made their way up the jetway. He was not looking forward to getting an Uber home, but it cost less than paying for parking and there was no way he was letting Allison see where he lived.

Ugh. He still needed to stop at baggage claim. Fuck this, next time he was finding a way to pack everything into carry on, eighty-pound cameras be damned.

His suitcase was one of the first; he hefted it off the conveyor, ignoring the look Allison gave it. She seemed personally offended by it, and he didn’t really get why. The duct tape keeping one seam together was barely noticeable.

Once she had hers—robin’s-egg blue, somehow stacked together into one neat rolling tower—they turned towards the exit. About five feet away from the crowd, one of the wheels on Neil’s luggage gave out with a lurch that had him stumbling. “It’s fine,” he said to Allison, who just shook her head in disgust. He stared at it for a moment, trying to figure out how he was going to manage to carry that in addition to his ninety pound cameras. 

“You’re using a suitcase you picked up off the side of the road, you shouldn’t be so surprised,” came a familiar voice from over by the sliding doors. Neil felt his heart rate pick up as he followed the sound. Allison squealed and ran to greet Renee with a smothering hug while Andrew sauntered over and grabbed one of his hundred-pound camera bags. Neil tried to hold onto it but his grip was feeble, so he was left watching helplessly as the other was also stripped off and slung over Andrew’s own shoulder. Before he could move, the suitcase was likewise hefted off the floor. “Move.”

Allison was openly grinning at him, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself quiet as he followed Andrew towards the short-term parking. Renee and Allison disappeared into a pink sports car while Neil watched helplessly as Andrew dumped his stuff in his trunk. “You didn’t have to do this,” he said, as Andrew got the car moving.

“Renee was going on and on about picking Allison up. It would’ve looked bad if I hadn’t.”

It still struck Neil as strange, that Andrew still gave a shit. He hadn’t even told Neil what he wanted in exchange yet, which no doubt meant it was going to be something highly unpleasant. Even if it was kind of...nice...slinking around the edges of their old routines. Neil watched him as he drove, trying to figure out what was going on behind that unchanging mask of his. “Staring,” Andrew said.

“I am not,” Neil replied automatically. “Just...thinking.”

“Well, stop it.” Neil huffed, and Andrew’s eyes flicked to him then back to the road. “Tell me about Iceland.”

So Neil did. About the grass, so green it looked almost surreal; about the hills covered in wildflowers; about the light, soft and mellow, turning the colors of the earth into jewels like nothing Neil had ever photographed before. The mystery of the ancient henges of stones; the waterfalls, the sound of which he could never do justice to; the craggy isolated peaks that looked like the weathered sculptures of some long-forgotten god. Neil found himself needing to use his hands to try to explain the magnitude of it, but it was still not enough. “I got some decent shots, but I don’t know, I think it’s just impossible to capture, you know?” 

To his acute embarrassment his voice had gone rough, and he subsided, cheeks warm. Andrew was quiet as they pulled into Neil’s apartment complex and he put the car in park. He turned to Neil with the intensity he rarely allowed through. “Get some sleep. You’re too tired to think straight.”

“I can’t just go to sleep,” Neil argued, “it’s the middle of the afternoon. I have edits to do.”

Andrew scoffed. “You were basically sleepwalking in the middle of the airport. If you try to do the edits now, you’ll just end up redoing them tomorrow.” He wasn’t wrong, so Neil didn’t bother arguing. Before he closed the door, Andrew leaned over. “If you captured one tenth of what you just told me, you did fine. Go to bed.”

For once in his contrary life, Neil listened. Maybe it was just the sheer exhaustion, but when he shrugged out of his airplane clothes and dropped face-first onto his bed all he could think of were all the times Andrew had done things like this for him in college. All the times he had been there, for no real reason, just for Neil to lean on, literally or otherwise. All the times Neil had taken it for granted. As he drifted off, he wondered how he had never noticed it before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all continue to be so kind and I'm so incredibly glad you're enjoying this so far! Thank you so much for all the lovely comments, they mean the world to me, I can't even tell you. HMU [on Tumblr](https://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com) if you have any questions or ever want to chat!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt drags Neil out for breakfast (and some answers), and Neil figures out how to work his TV, sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose I should warn for Empire Strikes Back spoilers (kind of)? Andrew's a movie nerd I don't make the rules

Neil woke to the sound of his phone buzzing on his nightstand. Groping blindly, he knocked it onto the floor and debated just leaving it there. Eventually it would break down, disappear into dust; phones were biodegradable, right?

Unfortunately it landed against the leg of the bed, which meant when it started up again a minute later, the whole frame buzzed with it. Fucking shit. Neil leaned over the edge of the bed, scrabbling for anything that felt like a phone and somehow managing to simultaneously knock it farther under and do a slow somersault off the bed, ending with his legs wedged up against the wall. 

“Why,” he asked the ceiling. As expected, he got no answer, and he managed to roll himself like a turtle onto his stomach. His phone was up against the wall, along with the blue sock with foxes on it that had gone missing shortly after he’d moved in and a magazine he didn’t remember ever buying. 

He really needed to clean.

Crawling back onto the bed, he blinked at the screen. Both Matt and Dan had called, which meant he needed to call them back if he didn’t want them breaking down his door sometime in the next twenty two minutes. Evidently they had not been satisfied by his _ Not exactly _ reply to Matt’s text about Andrew a week ago, nor the follow-up _ I’m going to Iceland talk when I get back. _ He’d sent them a couple of photos—Matt had particularly enjoyed the shaggy little horses—but he should’ve known that wouldn’t hold them off forever.

He pulled up Matt’s number and hit call while making his way into the kitchen for coffee. Matt picked up with, “You’re avoiding me.”

“No I’m not,” Neil lied. “It’s just been crazy.” He pulled the carafe off the coffeemaker and realized he had never dumped it out before he left; there was something floating on the surface, and when he opened the top the old grounds were molding. “Fuck.”

“What’s wrong?”

He hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it was too late to take it back. “I forgot to clean the coffeemaker before I went to Iceland.”

Matt gave a sympathetic laugh. “Okay, well, let me take you to breakfast. I can be there in ten.”

Neil sighed as he checked the time on his phone; seven eighteen. Which meant he’d slept for a good fifteen hours. No wonder his limbs felt so weird, like they didn’t really belong to him. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he wandered off to his bureau and pulled out his loosest, comfiest pair of jeans and his favorite t-shirt, black and boxy, with a strange gray design he didn’t understand. When he got done with his shower Matt was waiting on the couch, long limbs sprawled across two thirds of the tiny room, and Neil temporarily regretted having given him a key. 

Matt lurched to his feet, grinning. “Andrew still hasn’t asked for his shirt back, huh?”

Shit. Neil had forgotten that he’d stolen it out of the laundry a couple of years ago. Andrew had looked him over the first time he’d worn it, but hadn’t said anything; somehow it had just become Neil’s. He found himself rubbing the hem between his thumb and forefinger, feeling the softness of the fabric and wondering if maybe he should change, but Matt was already heading for the door. 

The little diner was as busy as it always was; the waitress took one look at Neil’s bleary eyes and just left the whole pot of coffee on the table. “So,” Matt started, once Neil had the first whispers of caffeine creeping into his bloodstream, “how are things?”

“Fine. Busy.”

Matt gave him a wicked grin. “That’s what I hear.” Neil suppressed his eyeroll and sipped more coffee, wishing it was cool enough to gulp down. “How’s the job?”

This was safe at least. Neil told him about the first-class flights, the hotels so nice it was hard to sleep, the days stretching so long it felt like night was just a blink. Matt smiled and nodded and toyed with his new wedding ring and looked so sincerely happy Neil found himself shifting in his seat, and he didn’t know why.

When their food came, Neil dug into his eggs, grateful for the distraction. Matt let him eat for a few minutes, talking about the honeymoon and all of Dan’s perfections before working his way back around to Neil. “So how did it happen?”

“There was an ad,” Neil said, shrugging.

“Wait, Andrew put out a dating ad? I didn’t know that was still a thing.” 

“What? No, of course not. The job.” 

Matt laughed. “I meant you and Andrew getting back together.”

Neil played with his fork for a moment, trying to figure out how to deflect. He didn’t want to lie to Matt, but if Andrew had lied to Kevin, it was probably safest to keep it going. “Why did you think we were together before?”

Matt blinked at him. “Weren’t you?”

“We were roommates.”

“Yeah, but…” Matt trailed off, his fingers drumming on the table as he fixed Neil with a stare. “I heard you tell people you had a boyfriend. Like, constantly.”

He stabbed at his sausage viciously. Shit. Fuck. God-fucking-damnit. “I lied, okay? I do it all the time when people get pushy. Sometimes that’s the only way to get people to leave you alone.”

Neil watched his words hit Matt like a stone, the ripples as understanding spread. “Oh my god, Neil. All that time…” He shook his head. “Did you ever think that maybe that wasn’t fair to Andrew?”

“He didn’t care.” 

“You’re shitting me, right?” Matt looked incredulous, then shook his head. “I never in my life thought I’d feel bad for Andrew Minyard, but…” He laughed. “At least you’re making it up to him now, I guess.”

Neil almost opened his mouth to correct him; he wasn’t sure why he stopped himself. The conversation shifted back to Dan and the honeymoon, and Neil let Matt talk himself out. But the whole time, the words swirled around in the back of his brain until his head began to ache. _ Wasn’t fair to Andrew. Wasn’t fair to Andrew. Wasn’t fair to Andrew. _ He tried to talk himself out of it, to focus on Matt’s words, then on the photographs he was editing, but all he could think of was the emptiness in Andrew’s eyes as he had stared out across the pond.

* * *

When the edges of every photograph were starting to blur, Neil closed his laptop and leaned back on the couch, pressing his fingers into his eyes. Two days of edits and he had more than enough for Allison to choose from, and he’d only gotten through about half of his shots. She was already making noise about leaving for New Zealand, and he expected the email any moment with his travel info.

This was...a lot. It had never really occurred to him that going from freelance to full-time would throw his internal schedule for such a loop.

He groaned to his feet, suddenly feeling forty years older. A run. That’s what he needed. Clear his head.

But even when he was back, dripping sweat all over his floor, a strange sort of weariness still pulled at him. He didn’t quite have a name for it. Not fatigue; he was intimately familiar with that. This was different. Hollow. Accompanied by a restlessness no number of miles covered could quite drive away. 

Tossing some leftovers in the microwave, he paced his tiny space for a while before digging the remote out of his junk drawer. After a moment’s thought, he found the duster Matt had made him get, under the bathroom sink where he had stuffed it a few months ago, and cleaned off the TV screen. That reminded him of all the cobwebs and he went around, stretching up to clear corners and the edges of the ceiling fan. When he was done there was a flicker of satisfaction as he looked around the room. Then the microwave gave a little reminder beep, and the little spark was doused.

He grabbed his food and flopped back on the couch, pushing the macaroni around on his plate. The remote was next to him, and he sighed and picked it up, trying to find the power button. The screen flared to life, and he recognized the scene immediately. A vast expanse of white, a person riding on a strange horned puppet creature. He watched for a minute, then snagged his phone.

_ Empire is on _

**Ghost:** _I know it’s a whole marathon_

Neil didn’t know why he opened up his phone contacts and pressed call. He was even less certain why Andrew actually picked up. “Should I be impressed you actually have a TV?”

“It was Robin’s,” Neil answered, feeling a little tug on his lips. 

“And Robin is…”

“My roommate last year. She left it behind.” He wanted to say something, something cutting and vicious, but the memory of Matt’s words made him bite his cheek. Andrew hummed in response, and they watched in an oddly companionable silence. Neil stabbed a few macaroni and shoved them in his mouth as they watched Leia and Han argue on screen. “I still want to know what a nerf-herder is. Like, how do you herd styrofoam balls?”

“Nerfs are shaggy cow-things.”

Neil chewed, swallowed. “How do you know that?”

“Everyone knows that.”

“On what planet does everyone know that.”

“Hoth,” Andrew answered dryly. 

Neil choked on a laugh and a noodle, coughing until he could breathe again. They watched for a few more minutes, until Neil’s plate was empty and an inexplicable warmth had settled in his gut. “I miss this,” he said softly, not sure if he wanted Andrew to hear him. Judging by the little hitch of breath on the other end of the line, he did. “Do you?”

There was a little pause. “Are we playing the truth game again?” Andrew asked, a strange lightness in his tone.

“No,” Neil said, settling back against the cushion and letting his eyes drift closed, following the movie based on the sounds alone. “I was just wondering.” Wondering too, if this was the first time in all these years that he had ever heard how a lie sounded in Andrew’s voice, if a question could ever be a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> awoeijsfdklaknvcidjl Thank you all so much for the comments and response! I hope y'all enjoy this chapter and a little more insight into college-age Andrew and Neil. HMU


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison's plan for a trip to photograph New Zealand leads to a Lord of the Rings movie night for Neil and Andrew...and a confusing revelation.

Neil was fast. He’d always been fast. He’d earned a partial scholarship to college based on being fast, had been a nationally ranked cross country runner for three years. 

So why did he have such a hard time keeping up with Allison Reynolds in her three-inch heels?

“And then we’re going to go to Wanaka,” she said, clicking down the hallway while Neil scurried after, laptop tucked under his arm. “I’m still not sure if we’re going to put those photos in this issue, or save them for a Lord of the Rings tribute issue when the anniversary comes up. Maybe we’ll go back for that.”

Neil nodded when she glanced at him, filing away the name to research later, along with all the others she’d thrown at him in the past five minutes. He was pretty sure she had a giant spreadsheet for a brain, and only she knew the tab system. As time went on, he was less and less surprised she had her own successful magazine at the age of twenty seven, and more surprised it had taken that long.

The meeting with the copy editors was interminable, and he had no clue why she had wanted him there. She didn’t need him; her vision was absolute, far more artistic and intriguing than he ever could have come up with. His mind kept drifting, to rocky shores and craggy mountains and geysers with steam curling in the air, the light that far north a strange magic all its own; then to something else entirely. A worn couch, an oversized TV, Andrew’s feet in fuzzy socks pressed up against his thigh as beacons were lit on mountaintops, music swelling in the air around them.

When the meeting was finally over and Neil was back in the sanctuary of his car, he pulled out his phone.  _ Which one is Lord of the Rings _

He hit send and waited to see how long it would take for Andrew to have an aneurysm. Approximately 3.4 seconds, judging by the speed of the response.

**Ghost:** _I hate everything about you_

_ Is it that horror movie with the blonde chick? Or the show where everyone dies and there’s dragons I can’t remember _

**Ghost:** _ You are the bane of my existence. If I put you out in the forest at night do you think the fairies would take you back? _

_ You know I’m bad at pop culture _

**Ghost:** _ It’s the one with the boarding school kids who get stuck on an island and start killing each other _

_ Oh I thought that was Lost _

**Ghost:** _ I’m going to fucking kill you _

Neil tapped his steering wheel, but no snappy answer came to him. Once he was back at his apartment, he settled on:  _ you’ll have to come over to do that I’m trying to finish this lineup for the magazine _

He wasn’t surprised when no answer came. And it was easy to lose himself in the acres of files Allison’s art director had given him. They wanted to use a dozen or so photos from freelancers to round out the issue on Iceland, but why they had asked him to choose he didn’t know. It wasn’t like he was impartial.

After a while he tried to narrow it down to the shots that captured the same sense of light that he had been so drawn in by. But then the composition was so different that he wanted to throw the thumb drive against a wall. On his fourth pass through, he gave up on a cohesive approach and sorted them based on location, then paired them off, discarding the worst one from each pair. 

He was staring at the eleventh pairing of churches—or was it the twelfth? —when the buzzer sounded for his door. Once he had climbed down from the ceiling, he crossed over to the door. “Yeah?”

“You said I had to come over if I wanted to kill you. I was planning on doing it long-distance, but rules are rules.”

Neil laughed and pressed the button. Leaving the door cracked, he settled back down at his computer. Fuck it, both of these shots sucked. He dragged them into the “No” folder just as Andrew appeared, bag in one hand, box in another.

“General Tso’s chicken, Shrimp Lo Mein, Crab Rangoon, and Moo Shu vegetables,” Andrew said, dropping the bag on Neil’s table. Neil grabbed what they needed out of his sole cupboard, dumping half the crab rangoons on his plate, then a bit of everything else, though when he got to the Moo Shu he only took a pancake. He had long been immune to Andrew’s glares; he just stared back while shoving a rangoon in his mouth.

“What’s in the box?” Neil asked, once he could without choking. Andrew held it up. The Two Towers. Asshole, he knew that was Neil’s favorite.

“The DVD player doesn’t work.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Andrew asked, going over to the little box. 

Neil’s face heated. “I, uh, I don’t have the remote for it. I think Robin took it with her.”

Andrew pressed the on button, then glanced around for the TV remote. Snagging it off the window ledge, he studied it for a brief second and then the four stages of realizing someone is a dumbass flickered across his face. “No remote. That sucks.” Looking Neil in the eye, he pointed the remote at the DVD player and pressed a button. The little tray slid out.

“What…”

Still not taking his eyes off Neil’s face, Andrew opened The Two Towers—extended edition, of course—and pulled out the first disc. Placed it in. Hit another button. The stupid thing slid back in and the opening music started to play. “Universal remote.”

Cursing under his breath, Neil dropped back onto the couch with his plate and chopsticks. His laptop was staring at him, screen gone dark in judgment. “I should be doing my work.”

“You’re allowed to eat.”

“I know, I know, I just want—”

“Did Allison say you had to finish tonight?”

Neil attempted to shovel a chopstick-fulls worth of food into his mouth but dropped it all on his plate. Well, except for one noodle and a shrimp that landed in his lap. “No,” he said, giving up and grabbing the fork off the table. “She wants it before we leave for New Zealand.”

“It’s Tuesday. You’re leaving Friday.”

“So? I’m sure there’s other stuff I can do when I finish this.”

Andrew gave him a look so flat it was practically two-dimensional. “I’ll tell Renee you’re working overtime without pay.” 

“Fine.”

Andrew got the movie going; Neil tried to stay detached, studying the scenery, the cinematography, the lighting. But by the time Aragorn kicked the helmet and dropped to his knees in a rage, Neil found his nails digging into his palms, his jaw clenched tight as Aragorn screamed. Across the couch from him, Andrew sat, feet tucked under him, his face impassive if you didn’t know him. But Neil knew him. 

A wave of nostalgia hit Neil so hard it threatened to sweep him off the couch. This was how it had always been with them. It wasn’t that Neil didn’t like his other friends; he did. They were straightforward and uncomplicated and—great. They were great. But he couldn’t sit on a couch with them and read a novel in the way a muscle twitched in Matt’s jaw, or the way Dan stabbed her fork into a chunk of chicken. 

“Keep going?” Andrew still sounded alert as the disc spun itself into a stop, but there was just the faintest rasp of fatigue behind the words.

“It’s getting late.” Cicadas were playing their tiny instruments outside his open window. The symphony made him want to sit out on a porch swing with a mug of citrus tea and watch the moon rise. Andrew didn’t move, either to leave or to change out the disc, and when Neil looked over at him, there was something in his eyes, something both new and familiar. When Neil blinked, it was gone; he knew that hard and mocking expression well.

“Truth?” he found himself asking. Andrew nodded after an interminable pause, and Neil steeled himself. “Why did you leave?”

For once, even Neil could pick up no tells in Andrew’s eyes, nor the cut of his mouth. “Because there are limits to how self-destructive a man can be.”

Neil’s stomach dropped, and he didn’t even know why. His hand ached to reach out, but he knew better. “That’s not an answer.”

Andrew got to his feet, grabbing his keys. “You want a different answer, ask a different question.”

“It’s your turn,” Neil said, as Andrew reached the door.

He paused with his hand on the knob, staring at the seam between the door and the wall, as immobile as stone. “That one was free,” he finally said, and he was gone before Neil could even take a breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely can't thank you all enough for the comments and kudos, I live for your reactions! If you want to yell at me (*cough*) you can HMU [on Tumblr](https://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com) anytime!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil and Allison travel to photograph New Zealand, still uncertain where things stand with Andrew. Some unwise alcohol consumption leads to texting and a confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neil gets rather drunk in this one, so CW for that. All typos in the texted conversation are deliberate; any other typos are accidental and please let me know if you spot one!

Neil had to admit, long-distance plane travel was definitely better when someone was willing to pay for first class tickets. His seat was more like a cozy private couch, complete with a wide selection of movies and cushy pillows. Allison settled into her own little luxury cave and Neil plugged in his headphones and curled up. 

The cabin was dark and silent when he startled awake, that strange feeling of being watched making his skin crawl. At first, nothing; then Allison’s head reappeared over her seat back. “You didn’t tell me Andrew broke up with you,” she hissed. 

“What the actual fuck?” Neil asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Probably not the best way to address his boss who was paying him frankly obscene amounts of money to travel the world and take pictures of pretty things, but whatever. 

Allison brandished her phone. “Renee texted.” 

“It’s…” Neil blinked at his phone until the numbers clarified themselves. “Three a.m. at home.” 

Allison ignored him. “Of course Andrew’s being a dick about it, he didn’t actually say he broke it off, but Renee said he was worse than usual when they fought and he wouldn’t answer when she asked how you were.” 

Fuck. He hauled himself into something vaguely resembling an upright posture and ran his hand through his hair, attempting to jump-start his brain. “It’s not like that,” he tried. 

“Are you going to try to claim you’re the one that broke up with him? I’m not that dumb, sweetie.” Neil gaped up at her, trying to process her words. “I’ve seen the way you look at him.” 

“No, it’s.” Ugh, why were words so hard? This was usually so easy for him, coming up with a palatable lie. He wondered when his brain would come online. Coffee. He needed coffee. But everyone around them was sound asleep, and it was just him and Allison, whispering in the dark. “We were never—exclusive.” That was a thing, right? 

“He cheated on you?” Her voice came out way too loud, and she shot a slightly guilty look across the aisle when somebody stirred. 

“What? No.” Was that what that meant? Maybe Kevin was right, and he really shouldn’t be allowed to talk to normal humans. “No, I just mean—we aren’t serious.” 

She huffed, shaking her head at him. “You go ahead and tell yourself that. But I’ve known Andrew for a while, and he’s different around you. Maybe…” She trailed off, her eyes going distant for a moment before she spun back around and disappeared into her nest. 

He debated asking her to explain, but settled back under his blankets instead. He could fix whatever just happened in the morning. 

Except he couldn’t sleep. Her words kept swirling around in his mind, along with a montage of Andrew that felt like it belonged in one of the rom-coms Andrew’s cousin Nicky liked to watch. Eventually he pulled out his laptop to get some work done. But the photo that came up when he opened his program made him freeze: Andrew leaning against the tree, facing the pond but looking into the camera. It was one of the best Neil had ever taken, if he was being honest with himself. He spent a few minutes playing with it, stopping once he converted it to black and white. The play of light and shadow brought out the bleak beauty of it in a whole new way; it somehow made it both bigger and smaller than it was. 

Only he didn’t think that was why he couldn’t look away. 

* * *

The photo chased him across New Zealand. He would be standing on the beach as the sun rose, the light sparking along a monstrous sphere of rock, and he would see fading rays hitting Andrew’s hair. Or looking out over a glacial lake, the water so clear the mountain was reflected in a kind of wonderland, and he wondered if that perfect looking glass would have shown a different sort of truth in Andrew’s eyes. 

He was, in fact, pathetic. 

Allison kept him busy, as she had in Iceland; but this time Neil could detect a note of pity behind her frenetic pace. As if she knew that if he was still, he would have to look down into the chasm he had somehow found himself teetering on the edge of. It wouldn’t have been so bad, if only he’d known how he’d ended up here. 

By day three he had started sending texts that he knew would never be answered. _However disgusting you thought marmite was, you’re wrong. It’s thirty times worse_

_There are a lot of sheep. They’re everywhere. I don’t know why I didn’t see that coming_

_WTF there are penguins. Wandering around in the grass. This isn’t Antarctica why are there penguins_

He sent photos he snapped with his phone, text snippets of conversation he overheard. Once, gleefully: _A woman in a shop just looked at me, looked at Allison, and asked if I was here on school holiday with my mum. Do you think A is rich enough to buy her way out of the murder charges?_

Sometime around day ten he was starting to get mad. Or maybe it was eleven; the whiskey the little inn had plied them with made unimportant things like dates a little hazy. Nursing his third (fourth?) glass, he opened up his laptop to download the day’s captures; Andrew stared back at him from his desktop background. Five minutes later he shook himself. He had never asked Andrew why he had looked sad. He needed to ask Andrew why he looked sad. He pulled out his phone. 

_Andrew_

Yes; his name. That was a strong start. 

_Your an asshole._ Good, good, a statement of fact. _You act like my friend but then you ghost me and I dont know what I did you said it was self distructave but I dont know what that means we were just roommates and I liked being you’re roommate and then we were friends and I liked that more and now your sad but you never said anything why didnt you say anything_

He blinked at his screen; he was pretty sure he had more to say but this looked kinda long, so he hit send. Nothing happened; he drained the rest of the whiskey and wondered why he had always avoided drinking this much before. The burn down his throat was kind of pleasant, actually. And it was nice, being a helium balloon, bobbing along untethered. And the more he wanted to say turned out to be sitting in the bottom of his glass. 

_Matt said you liked me befoer he thought we were boyfriends but if you liked me you would have said something but he doesnt believe me he thinks you want to duck me and I dont see why you would want to_

There. 

Ha. 

Let Andrew chew on that for a bit. Neil pulled the card out of his camera and stuck it into the computer; he might have drifted off for a little bit while the photos downloaded, because the vibration of his phone against his thigh startled him awake. 

**Ghost:** _Are you drunk_

_No not drunk_

_I may have had some whiskey but Im not drunk_

_Is it whisky or whiskey whats the difference_

_How do I know if Im drunk_

No answer came through his phone, though he stared at it until it went dark. Or maybe the whole world went dark, because the next thing he knew there was a knock on his door and suddenly the room lights were on and his phone was on the floor. 

“Neil? You better be alive in there, if you drowned in your own vomit Andrew’s going to kill me.” 

Ugh. Neil lurched to his feet. When did the room get so big? And who decided an obstacle course was a good idea in a bedroom? Allison was raising her fist to knock for the third time when Neil wrenched the door open. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Guess Andrew was right.” 

“Huh?” 

“Come on, sweetie,” she said, taking his arm. “We’re going to get some water into you and then you’re going to bed.” 

“No,” he said, wrenching his arm away from her hard enough that he stumbled into the wall. “I need to do the pictures.” 

She ignored him and pulled a water out of the little fridge. He thought about dropping it on the floor but it was cold and slightly damp and suddenly his mouth decided he needed to take a sip. 

It was the most delicious water he’d ever had. He didn’t even know how to explain it; he wasn’t sure how he’d ever drink other water again, since it wouldn’t be like this water. Before he could think, half of it was gone; he stumbled across the stupidly enormous room to the window and set the bottle down on the sill. Allison watched in confusion as he got out his camera and turned it on. 

The screen blinked at him; he blinked back, and realized it needed a card. Somehow the card had grown just a little too big for the slot, but eventually he managed to fit it in. The light in the room was dim; he opened his aperture all the way up and lined up the shot. 

“Seriously?” Allison said. “Okay.” 

He stared at the picture on the little screen, then held it out to her; she rolled her eyes but looked anyway, then huffed. “Trust you to take an artistic picture of a bottle of water when you’re smashed.” 

“’M not smashed,” Neil said, turning off the camera. The lens cap was slippery; he fumbled it twice before managing to get it to click back in place. “Fucker.” 

“Excuse me?” Allison sounded offended for some reason, and Neil waved his camera in her direction. 

“Lens cap. It’s a little fucker.” 

She huffed, but she was smiling as she pulled down the covers on the bed while he set the camera back in its case. “Get in.” 

“You’re engaged,” he said, staring at her. 

She laughed. “I’m not joining you, believe me.” 

Oh. He tried to kick off his shoes but they were already over by the door. Probably he shouldn’t sleep in his pants. He went to take them off, but stopped, chewing on his lip as he looked up at Allison. She pointedly turned her back, and he stripped them off and climbed in. 

His bottle of water ended up on the bedside table and he picked it up, cradling it in his hands. Allison dropped a second one next to it and shut off the light that had been blinding him. “Drink. All of it.” The rest of the bottle was just as good, and he opened up the second. She stood over him, arms crossed, shaking her head. “What were you thinking?” 

“Wasn’t,” Neil mumbled. 

“You shouldn’t be drinking yourself into a stupor just because Andrew’s a commitmentphobe,” she said. “He’ll come around.” 

Andrew. Neil swallowed some more water, feeling like there was something important he had to tell Allison. Something about Andrew. Or maybe something he wasn’t supposed to tell her; maybe it was a secret. That was it. “I have a secret.” 

“Do you?” There was more suppressed laughter in her voice and he didn’t know why. 

“Yeah. I have lots of secrets.” 

“I’m sure you do. Go to sleep, Neil.” 

“This one’s important.” It was; so important he didn’t think he could keep it behind his teeth. “I like Andrew.” 

Now she did laugh. “That’s not a secret, Neil.” 

He shook his head. “No you don’t understand. I like him, like him. And he doesn’t know. He thinks it’s fake.” 

Allison sighed. “No, that’s not it. Andrew’s just...complicated. It’ll be okay, I promise. Just finish your water and get some sleep.” 

But she was wrong. She was wrong and Andrew didn’t know and he needed someone to understand this and he wasn’t sure what was supposed to be a secret anymore. He blinked, trying to straighten out his tangled thoughts, but when he next opened his eyes the room was dark and silent and he was alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost there folks! Thank you so much for going on this journey with me and for all your absolutely wonderful comments, I love them all. HMU [on Tumblr](https://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi or scream about Andreil (or the other Foxes)!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a confrontation and a conversation

The apartment was as empty as it always was, dust motes swirling in the sunlight pouring in through the windows. Neil wheeled his luggage in and kicked off his shoes, abandoning both by the door. He slumped on the couch, watching the flicker of leaves outside his window. There was so much work to be done, and the first lineup of photos had to be in in five days, and he had basically sat for ninety percent of the last twenty four hours, but he couldn’t quite muster the energy to move. 

His eyes drifted around the room, over the blank walls, the secondhand furniture, the ugly linoleum floor that was trying its best to look like wood. The remote for the TV was upside down on his little table, next to a reddish brown box that he recognized. The Two Towers. Andrew’s copy. 

Andrew had never responded after that one barely-remembered night. Irritation flared, a spark in a dark room. Neil pulled out his phone. 

_Where do you live _

_I need to bring back your movie _

_Tell me where you live and I’ll drop it off_

_Fuck it I’ll ask Kevin_

**Ghost:** _I’m at work ffs it’s 3 p.m. on a Wednesday_

Neil blinked; he hadn’t even realized what day it was with all the travel. _I’ll drop it off there I don’t care_

**Ghost:** _I’ll come get it after work I pass your place_

_Fine._

Neil pulled out his laptop, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to open it; he didn’t want to see that fucking photograph one more time. He poured a bowl of dry cereal and slumped back on the couch, chewing mindlessly, his attention drifting back to the box again and again. Finally he got up and shoved the movie into the DVD player, then dicked around with the remote until he got it playing. 

The battle for Helm’s deep was in full swing when his buzzer sounded, startling him out of the little stupor he had gone into. He pressed the button to let Andrew in and stopped the movie, setting the disc carefully back in the box just as his door swung open. Wordlessly, he handed it out to Andrew, who had the audacity to look amused. “You could’ve kept it,” he said. 

“Seriously?” Neil put as much scorn as he could in the single word, but it didn’t even make Andrew blink. “It’s yours. I can’t keep it. Not after what happened.” 

“After what happened,” Andrew repeated. There was a warning there that Neil didn’t understand. 

He lifted his chin a little, not looking away. “Yeah.” 

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, Neil. Educate me.” His tone was mocking, distant; a dart thrown instead of the intimate press of a knife. 

Neil paced away a couple of steps, his fingers digging into his arm. “You ghosted me. Again. For no fucking reason.” 

“Oh, is that what happened.” There was a viciousness in Andrew’s snarl that had Neil pulling up short, spinning so his back was to the wall. “I guess I had it wrong then. I thought I helped you get a job you wanted.” 

Neil blinked. “You did.” 

“And I thought I lied to my friends to help keep your cover. And bought you clothes so that your ruse wouldn’t fall apart, and picked you up from the airport because that’s what Renee was doing.” Andrew took a step closer. “And I thought I told you that night.” 

“Told me what?” Neil asked. “You didn’t tell me a fucking thing.” 

“What were my words.” Another step, and he was in Neil’s space, practically breathing the same air. 

“You said there was a limit to how self-destructive a man could be.” Andrew nodded, a grim sort of satisfaction playing around his mouth. “But that—what does that even mean? How is this,” Neil gestured between them, “self-destructive?” 

“Truth?” 

“Truth.” 

“It is self-destructive to spend your life waiting for a man who will never want you back.” 

The floor tilted on an angle so steep Neil clutched at the wall. Matt’s words from weeks ago echoed in his head. _I never thought I would feel sorry for Andrew Minyard._ He shook his head, trying to clear it, and Andrew was watching him with unfathomable eyes. “Andrew,” Neil said, so softly it was barely a whisper. He tried to say something else, anything, but words wouldn’t come. Andrew stepped back, and back again, and then he was gone. 

* * *

Neil leaned against the wall, for a span of ten heartbeats or a hundred he wasn’t sure. And then he let his feet do what they did best. He ran. 

There was no sign of Andrew in the hallway. Neil bolted for the stairs, going down them two at a time. He slipped rounding a landing, skidding sideways on his socked feet with only the banister saving the crash. Bursting through the door, he caught sight of Andrew’s car, the flash of sunlight off the window as the door opened. And then he was there, grabbing the frame, gasping out, “Wait.” 

Andrew stared at him through the window, one eyebrow raised. Waiting. Just as Neil had asked. He opened up his mouth, not sure what he was going to say. “You never said anything,” was what came out. 

“You made yourself clear enough.” 

“I didn’t do anything!” 

He stepped out of the way as Andrew got out of the car, slamming the door; his head cocked to the side, as if he were a curious dog, but there was nothing soft or blank about his expression. It was fierce and vital and raw, the sun turning his hair into a halo, and a small part of Neil thought if he had his camera it would be the best shot he ever took. “I’m taking my turn.” 

“Okay.” 

“What was I supposed to think when you told me you had no interest in anyone? No, that’s not my question. What was I supposed to think when you used me as your excuse to turn people down? Hmm, that’s not my question either. 

“How about this: what would you have thought if, knowing all that, that you didn’t swing, that you routinely lied to deflect other people’s interest in you, that you considered me a friend.” He spat that last word as if it was poison. “What would you have thought if I had ignored all of that and told you I wanted to fuck you?” 

Neil’s mouth had gone completely dry; the sun-warmed pavement was burning his feet through his socks. He tried desperately to swallow, to come up with something—anything—to make this better. But he owed Andrew the truth, had promised him that much. 

“I don’t know what I would have thought three years ago, or even two,” he said slowly. “I probably would have panicked.” 

Andrew nodded and moved to get back in his car; Neil slid to block his way. “But—it’s different now. I think it has been for a while, maybe even since before you left. I don’t really know.” His words fizzled out, and he rubbed his hands over his face, hoping to somehow get his brain to reset. When he dropped them, Andrew hadn’t moved; Neil wasn’t totally sure he was breathing. 

“Ugh, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. It’s—how are you supposed to recognize something when you’ve never seen it before? Or felt it, I guess. I just...you’re my favorite person, Andrew. You have been for a long time. And when you’re not around, it’s like there’s some big part of me missing. It’s not a vital part, I can keep on functioning, but it’s like the best parts of myself just kind of turn gray when you’re not there. And I was okay with that, you know? Or I thought I was. 

“But then I needed someone, and I probably could have found someone else but honestly I think I just wanted an excuse to contact you. And you answered, and it was like...you know that part in Wizard of Oz? Where she lands in Oz and everything changes from black and white to color? It was like that.” 

Andrew took a step towards him, and Neil held his ground. “You’re my color, Andrew.” Two fingers hooked into his shirt collar, Andrew’s eyes were fixed on his mouth, and Neil couldn’t help it, the smile that spread like the opening of a flower. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.” 

“Yes or no?” 

Of course there was only one possible answer. And maybe it should have been soft; gentle; a fairy tale kiss out of a movie. It wasn’t. It was harsh and biting and Neil didn’t think he could ever breathe again if the air hadn’t passed through Andrew’s lips first. Nothing in his extremely limited experience had prepared him for this, for the thumb stroking his jaw, the fingers buried in his hair, the way it felt so natural to open up to Andrew’s seeking tongue. He didn’t know how long they stood there, out in the parking lot in full view of his entire apartment complex and about half the city. He didn’t care. How could he, when he had Andrew’s hands on his skin? 

At last it gentled, and when Andrew pulled back there was a rare question in his eyes. Neil leaned forward, and he could taste the tiny smile on Andrew’s lips. It was sweeter than strawberries. 

The sound of a car door jolted Neil back into reality. “Will you come upstairs with me?” he asked, then couldn’t help but laugh at Andrew’s expression. “Not that, not yet, it’s just—I left my door open.” 

“You are a mess,” Andrew said, but he linked their fingers as he led the way across the parking lot. 

* * *

The world had narrowed down to the view of Allison’s back, the click of her heels. Neil yawned and scrubbed at his eyes with his free hand. Four airports in twenty four hours was more than enough, and he gave a little sigh of relief at the familiar signs and overpriced coffee shops. 

Baggage claim was crowded, several flights’ worth of exhausted irritability crammed into one space. Neil leaned back against a post and closed his eyes. A few more minutes. He could handle a few more minutes after the past ten days. 

A blaring sound announced the arrival of the baggage, and he pushed off the post to join the throng gathered around the conveyor. Allison grabbed her bag, and his was not far behind. He stacked his stuff quickly and found himself once again chasing her across an airport floor. 

And there they were by the sliding doors, just as they always were. Renee, serene but glowing with quiet happiness that lit her up like a star. Andrew, face impassive but eyes burning, Neil’s own personal sun. Neil let go of his luggage, and it kept rolling of its own accord, arcing slowly towards the doors and freedom. Andrew intercepted it before it could wheel itself right out onto the sidewalk. 

“Hi,” Neil said, stopping as close to Andrew as he could, lured in by the warmth of him, the gravitational pull. Andrew didn’t answer, just reached up and hooked his fingers in Neil’s shirt, tugging enough that Neil felt grounded for the first time in days. Allison was busy with her wife, so Neil followed Andrew outside. 

There was still a faint chill in the air, as spring fought to chase out the winter. Crocuses were coming up in the beds that lined the pavement, and a pair of robins hopped along a grassy area, pausing to watch as Andrew and Neil passed. Before doing up his seatbelt Neil leaned across the console to meet Andrew’s mouth, and he took the first deep breath he’d managed since he’d last been here, in this car, with this man. 

They broke apart after a few minutes, and Neil leaned back into the seat, eyes trained on Andrew’s face as he put the car in drive. “Tell me about China,” Andrew said, heading towards the payment booths. 

So Neil did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ajkflsdfklsfaoaeijsfl It's finally over and I hope you all enjoyed the ending!! Thank you so much for the comments and support of this silly little fic. You know that thing about submitting to the mortifying idea of being known? Every time I post a fic, I'm letting you all get to know a little piece of me, of my heart and my strange brain, and reading your response to that soothes that fear and mortification. So thank you for going on this journey with me. HMU [on Tumblr](https://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com) if you ever want to chat, yell, cheer, cry, whatever.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all enjoy this one, I wrote it not sure it would ever see the light of day but here it is. I know we're supposed to write for us (and I do), but I post because of all of you, because I want to make you laugh and cry and have a good time like I do when I'm writing. <3 I've mentioned this before, but I've been dealing with some anxiety in responding to comments; I do try, but know that even if I don't respond, I cherish each and every one.


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